


The Sticky Note Situation

by Phantom-Sunset (TheLovelyPatronus)



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Doodles for Days, F/M, Inspired By Tumblr, Some angst, Sticky Note Flirting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:00:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28074354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLovelyPatronus/pseuds/Phantom-Sunset
Summary: Julie starts finding sticky notes stuck to her things. Little doodles that wouldn't mean much to anyone else, but meant the world to her.ORFive times Julie finds a sticky note doodle and one time Luke does.
Relationships: Alex & Willie (Julie and The Phantoms), Julie Molina/Luke Patterson
Comments: 33
Kudos: 310





	The Sticky Note Situation

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be fluffly but I made the mistake of listening to the soundtrack as I wrote so when Unsaid Emily came up...Well, you'll know which part the song came on to. I'm sorry in advance.
> 
> Rated Teen for language.

**I.**

The first time Julie had found a sticky note doodle, it had been the morning after the Finally Free performance. The little pink square had been placed carefully at the top of her dream box. On top of snippets of lyrics, doodle’s of inside jokes with Flynn, and songs she and her mother had started but never got the chance to finish. 

She had woken up with a phrase on the tip of her tongue.  _ “We Say we’re friends, We play pretend.”  _ She was in so much trouble. The dream was fading fast but one detail was clear as day. Big, expressive, hazel eyes. Flynn was going to kill her.

She scribbled it down fast on a Post-It from a pad she kept by her bed for situations like these. The pad shifted between colors. Purple, orange, red, and pink. All the colors of a sunset. She smiled at the symmetry of the universe.  _ Sunset curve was right.  _ She thought.

She went to place the phrase in her dream box, hoping to come back and work on it after school. When she opened the box she found it. Bright pink, crinkled in the corners as if it had been carried in a pocket for a little while before it found its way into her box.

Julie smiled, the little picture was adorable. Three little ghosts, simply drawn but obvious nonetheless. The one on the left was wearing a necklace and had a bass hanging from its neck. The one in the middle had a cap drawn on it’s head and a drumstick floating on either side where it’s hands would be. The one on the right had a little beanie that looked more like a baby bottle nipple than a hat. A guitar hung slung across the ghost's chest. 

Julie thought it was the most adorable thing she’d ever seen. She wasn’t sure who had left it but her suspicions landed on Luke, the only one who had decided that the dreambox belonged to the both of them now. He liked to leave her song lyrics and quotes he liked from books he borrowed from her there.

This was new, she’d never gotten a doodle before. She found that this was her favorite  _ Luke dreambox message.  _ It wasn’t like she could get a picture of her boys unless they were performing, so this would be as close as she could get. She took the sticky out of her box and walked over to her dresser mirror. She stuck the doodle in the corner of the mirror where it would always be in her field of vision and tucked a corner into the place where the wood met the glass so it wouldn’t fall if the glue dried out.

Luke had seen the placement of his sticky note art while Julie was at school. He wanted to see if he could find inspiration for a song to work on for their next gig but once he’d seen the bright pink sticky hanging in the place of pride in her room, he had blushed to the tips of his ears and poofed back out to the garage. He had stolen the pad from her night table on his way out.

  
  


**II.**

Julie had come home from school that day, the phrase she had dreamt had become a full blown song in the five minutes she had spent dancing with Nick. Complete with dance sequence and wardrobe. She cringed as she remembered what her brain had dressed Luke in. Then she laughed just imagining asking him to style his hair that way. He’d have a fit. With that thought, she decided that she would make it happen, if just for shits and giggles.

Before heading out to the studio to rehearse for the party tonight, she quickly scribbled out the lyrics to the song but instead of putting it in her dreambox where Luke would undoubtedly snoop, she hid it in her underwear drawer, knowing the boys never went through anything but the box. 

On her way out of the room she noticed a second sticky note stuck to her door. This one was bright orange and it might be her favorite one. It was a butterfly, very simply drawn but colored in with sharpie. The wings took up the whole square and each of the four sections of the wings had a different detail. A different color for each section.

The top left wing had a little “JM” in the corner. A mic, a flower that looked a little like a dahlia, and a little music note filled in that side. This side was shaded purple. The top right wing had an “LP” in the corner, a little stick figure guitar, and a crudely drawn blob that Julie thought might resemble a rabbit's foot if one squinted hard enough. This one was left with the orange backdrop of the sticky note. 

The bottom left wing had an “AM” there. A little drum doodled in the corner that almost took up the whole thing and therefore left no room for more little hints. This side was shaded pink, but still looked orange. The bottom right wing had a “RP” with another little guitar, another little blob that vaguely resembled a jacket that she assumed was supposed to be leather. This side was shaded red. On the bottom of the note was “You’re the wind beneath our wings.” She laughed. She couldn’t believe that he had quoted Bette Midler. 

Luke had to stop doing this. She was barely able to convince herself to stop without his little doodle gifts. It was too close to her heart and he must have noticed how she drew on literally everything from clothes to shoes to notebooks to pages of song lyrics. If she held a pen, chances were there’d be a doodle left somewhere. He was making it impossible to follow Flynn’s advice but she’d still try, no matter how hard it was.

She placed the doodle underneath the first, on her mirror. Just because she needed to control her feelings for the ghost guitarist, didn’t mean she couldn’t admire his work. When Luke had seen the second sticky note under the first, he decided that this would be his thing. He’d aspire to fill the entire mirror before Caleb’s curse destroyed them.

**III.**

Julie woke up the next morning to something tickling her nose. She was about to kill them again if she opened her eyes and found them standing over her. Instead she found her vision blocked by a red sticky note. He’d stuck it to her forehead as she slept. She wanted to be mad but instead she laughed. He was ridiculous.

She lifted the note off of her head to take a look. It seemed that with every doodle he left for her, it would take the place of favorite of the last. He had to stop reading her soul this way, it was getting out of hand.

This one had a rectangle drawn on it. On the top was “Julie & The Phantoms” and underneath that was “Admit One” and under that, the whopping price of “$150.00”. Because in Luke’s head, this would be the price after they’d made it big and everyone wanted to watch them perform.

She’d have to inform him of inflation and that nowadays, a good concert could cost over a thousand depending on the seats. Of course it was a future she’d wanted for all of them but at the moment, their future seemed all too uncertain. 

She tried not to think about it, she tried to live in the moment, but sometimes the fear would crop up. The fear that they couldn’t stay with her, or if they could, that eventually she’d be old and they’d stay seventeen forever and she’d have to leave them behind no matter how much she didn’t want to.

So, as much as she loved this doodle, it went to her dreambox instead. She didn’t want to remind herself of the future too much, not right now at least, when it all seemed so uncertain. This one would be a “something that made her sad” and she just didn’t want that now that she was feeling a little more alive with every day she spent with her boys.

When Luke found this sticky note in her dreambox instead of on the mirror, he realized the mistake he had made. Time was meaningless to them but to her it must have felt like an axe swinging above her head, getting lower every day. She still had no idea how low the axe swung for the three of them and suddenly he felt so guilty for keeping it from her. He’d tell her today. He had to.

**IV.**

She woke up in the middle of the night. Her nightmare having startled her awake after watching the boys cease to exist as she clung to them with everything she had. No amount of strength was enough though as they slipped through her fingers and she was left alone once again. Purple sparks raining down on her, the only sign that they had been there at all.

She sat up in her bed clutching at her chest, trying to regulate her breathing. There were tears leaking down her face as she sobbed. It had felt too real, the pain of it was too fresh. Luke had just told her about the curse, about their unfinished business, about how she’d have to lose them, regardless of the way it happened.

Luke had poofed into her room to leave another one of his doodles, hoping to alleviate some of the pain he’d seen in her eyes after he’d confessed their sins. Instead he found himself staring at the sobbing girl who hadn’t noticed him. She was talking to herself.

“Not again. Please not again. I won’t survive it. Don’t take them away from me, please.” Luke’s heart broke. He felt his eyes filling up with tears. He had done this, the three of them had caused her this pain. They would force her to grieve all over again, this time for three instead of one. 

“Hey, Jules. Are you okay? What’s wrong?” He whispered so as not to startle her more than she already clearly was. 

“I don’t want to let you go. Not now, not ever.” He barely made the words out through her sobs. God, he wanted to hold her so bad. He wanted to comfort her and promise her everything would be okay but he couldn’t. He couldn’t hold her because he was  _ fucking air.  _ He couldn’t promise her a goddamn thing because no matter how bad they wanted it, they’d have to leave her. 

So instead he knelt in front of her, placing his hands on either side of her on the bed and waited until she looked up and into his eyes. 

“We love you, Jules. So much. I love you, more than I think I’ve loved anything in my life. It fucking sucks, I know it does. We don’t want to leave. If I could, I’d tear apart the entire universe just to find a way for us to stay with you.” He was breathing hard, the stress of their situation making it hard for him to speak.

“We’re always going to be with you. The same way you feel connected to your mom when you sing. You’ll feel us too, we’ll be cheering you on from above. I promise.” At least he could promise that, even if it meant very little in the grand scheme of things.

“I wish I could hug you.” She was still crying but the sobbing hiccups had subsided. 

“Me too.” Luke sighed as she laid down, he adjusted himself to lay down next to her. They stayed that way for a few quiet minutes, just basking in each other's company while they could.

“I came here to leave you something.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a purple sticky note. This one had no shading, just a black pen used to draw out and shade a star. It was wearing a tutu and had curly hair scribbled around it, almost taking up the whole page, a little mic to the side like the point of the star was holding it. On the bottom was written “You’re a star, Julie” And she started crying again.

She got up out of bed and walked over to her mirror to stick it under the other two she had there. They’d be the only thing she had left of them after tonight. Aside from her memories, of course. She came back and laid down next to him again. She placed her hand on top of his and it sunk down onto the bed. She left it there even though it shattered what was left of her heart.

**V.**

Julie woke up the morning after the Orpheum with the smile from her dream etched onto her face. They’d been having dinner with her family, the four of them new additions. Solid and alive. Hearts beating, lungs filling with air, and Luke’s hand in hers under the table. 

Reggie sat with Ray discussing photography. Alex sat with Carlos on one side and Willie on the other discussing skating lessons for them both. Flynn sat to her other side, smiling at her knowingly. Her  _ tia  _ sat at one end of the table, a smile on her face as she watched her family enjoy her food. It was all laughter and love. It was all she’d ever wanted and now it seemed as though that dream was in reach.

After she’d thrown herself into Luke’s arms last night, everything had happened at warp speed. The boys had started glowing, Caleb’s stamp floated up and off of them, disintegrating in the air. They were crying and laughing and hugging when Willie had shown up, all teary eyed. He kept repeating “I’m free.” over and over again until Alex had pulled him away to try and find out what had happened.

What had happened, had turned out to be some kind of miracle. Julie had somehow broken the connection of the stamp to all four of them. She had somehow brought them all back to life. She didn’t know how, didn’t really care how because she was hugging her boys, she was feeling their heartbeats. They were solid. They were  _ alive alive alive  _ and no amount of questions could give her an answer that she cared about more than this.

Ray had walked in on quite a scene when Julie hadn’t come back from the studio after an hour. They were on the couch. Julie in the middle Luke to her left, Reggie to his left. Alex to her right and Willie to his right. They were hugging, arms tangled trying to touch everyone at the same time. Their words are spoken but none of them clear through the tears and stuffy noses.

They had been introduced to her father, the situation explained as coherently as possible which admittedly was not very much. Ray simply shrugged his shoulders, led the boys into the two guest rooms and told them to make themselves at home. There had been a lot more tears after that. The most from Reggie and Alex who had never had a good parental figure in their lives before.

Julie got out of bed and made her way over to the drawer where she had hidden  _ Perfect Harmony.  _ She folded it up and walked over to place it in her dreambox. She was ready for Luke to find it. She wanted him to find it.

That’s where she found the newest sticky notes. It was left under her dream box, stuck to the cover of Luke’s songbook. There were two of them stuck to the book. The doodle was a stick figure. Complete with tutu, curly hair, and holding a mic. Little stars and moons decorated the paper around the little figure. She smiled at the picture and went to place it on the mirror before she remembered the second sticky.

This one only had a message. “ They’re yours now. Keep us alive.” and hadn’t she done just that? She’d kept them alive. She caressed the sticky’s smiling all dopey to herself to the point that she didn’t hear Alex knock or open her door as he walked into her room.

He called her name a few times before becoming exasperated and calling out to Luke.

“Luke! You broke her, dude! Stop with the art flirting. Oh my god.” Julie busted out laughing at that and placed the book back under her dream box. The sticky went to her mirror where it belonged, along with the one with the Julie and The Phantoms ticket. She grabbed the pad off of her desk, this one blue, and decided to leave her own “art flirt” for Luke.

**+1.**

Julie was in school and Luke was bored. He had a melody running through his head that he couldn’t get out. He needed lyrics if he wanted the song to leave him alone, that was just how his brain worked. As of right now, his mind only had melodies available, no lyrics. So he made his way to Julie’s room to look through her dream box. 

He had seen her writing a couple of days ago and knew there was something new in there. He opened it to find a blue sticky note. His face flushed red. He’d have to get used to that. Especially since his natural state was red as a tomato any time Julie got too close, or sang to him, or just breathed in his general direction.

The sticky note had Julie’s signature doodle style. It was four little ghosts, a perfect replica of the ghosts he drew for her, only this time a fourth ghost was added. One with curly hair and a tutu. There was a heart on the chest of her ghost self and a matching one on the chest of the Luke ghost. While Alex ghost and Reggie ghost remained the same as his versions, just better drawn.

The sticky was stuck to a folded up piece of pink stationary paper. He unfolded it to find the title of Julie’s new song.  _ Perfect Harmony.  _ Luke’s eyes widened. This couldn’t be what he thought it was, could it?

She had written a love song. For him. No one had ever written a song for him. It had always been him who made his feelings known through song. He had written Finally free with Julie in Mind. Long Weekend for Alex when they had been young and Luke had thought that Alex had been the love of his life. Crooked Teeth for Reggie, when he was an awkward pre-teen and his braces hadn’t straightened out his teeth yet.

The fact that someone, that  _ Julie  _ had written something for him...well it had broken his brain for a few minutes.

“She’s going to kill you, you know that right?” Alex, Reggie, and Willie were crowding around the doorway to Julie’s room, watching his mouth open and close. 

“Hello? Earth to Luke?” Reggie was in front of him now, snapping his fingers in front of Luke’s face. 

“I think he’s broken.” Willie said.

“Nah, Julie wrote him a  _ loooove  _ song.” Alex said as he looked over Luke’s shoulder at the paper in his hands.

“Perfect Harmony, huh? Looks like we were right.” Reggie said as he flicked Luke’s ear and danced away before Luke could retaliate. 

“I hate you guys.” Luke stomped away, went to his room and locked the door. The sounds of the boy's laughter followed him out. He sat on his bed and read, and reread, and reread again, the lyrics she had written.  _ For him.  _

_ Step into my world _

_ Bittersweet love story 'bout a girl _

_ Shook me to the core _

_ Voice like an angel _

_ I've never heard before _

This was obviously meant to be a duet. He had made his feelings known, if not in a conventional way. So he knew she knew. It still shocked him to see it written clear as day in front of his face, though.

_ Here in front of me _

_ They're shining so much brighter _

_ Than I have ever seen _

_ Life can be so mean _

_ But when he goes, I know he doesn't leave _

This was written before “The Miracle” as they had started calling it. It was both an admission of love and a sad sort of reminder that they couldn’t stay forever. It hurt just the same as it had when he thought they were going to leave her.

_ The truth is finally breaking through _

_ Two worlds collide when I'm with you _

_ Our voices rise and soar so high _

_ We come to life when we're _

_ In perfect harmony _

The truth had broken through, she was right about that. He had decided after Eats & Beats that he wouldn’t hide his feelings. He wouldn’t outright tell her but he wouldn’t hide it either. Their two worlds had collided in both their musical styles and the fact that their lives now revolved around each other.

_ You set me free _

_ You and me together is more than chemistry _

_ Love me as I am _

_ I'll hold your music here inside my hands _

He loved her as she was. He probably loved her before he even really knew who she was, if he was being honest with himself. She had set him free, had set them all free. She held more than just his music in her hands and though that thought should terrify him, it comforted him instead.

_ We say we're friends, we play pretend _

_ You're more to me, we're everything _

_ Our voices rise and soar so high _

_ We come to life when we're _

_ In perfect harmony _

Luke was tearing now. This song was the most beautiful thing he’d ever read and funnily enough, fit perfectly with the melody he had been working through. He got up and made his way to Willie and Alex’s room where Reggie was on their bed scrolling through Tik Tok and Alex and Willie were talking quietly. 

“Up we get, boys. We have a new song to perfect before Julie gets home. I wanna surprise her with a finished product.” He told them. Willie and Alex smirked at each other while Reggie simply got up to follow him out.

“Dude, it’s twelve. She’s going to be home in a couple of hours. We don’t have enough time.” Alex said. Luke simply stared at him until he sighed and got up, holding his hand out for Willie. 

“Let’s go. He’s using the puppy eyes and I don’t have the brain capacity to deal with that right now.” Willie laughed, grabbed his hand and the four of them made their way to the studio where they worked non stop until they heard Julie making her way up to the doors of the garage. 

  
They’d gotten the song down. The piano was set up with the sheet music Luke had written already on the stand for her. He couldn’t wait to sing her song. He couldn’t wait to spend the rest of his life singing her music, their music, _ their magic _ .

**Author's Note:**

> This work was inspired by a post on tumblr, as has been the case for all of my JATP fics so far.


End file.
